The Kano Emirate controversy comments

For a while, there have opinions on the unfolding drama in Kano among Nigerians. Two that have been trending on social media are reproduced below:
Nothing will happen in Kano after what Ganduje did
Late Emir of Kano Alh Ado Bayero was once asked “how were you be able to ruled Kano for five decades (50years) without trouble ” He replied ” I embraced everyone. As a traditional ruler I considered myself as father to all. I did stay away from politicians. And if I have any advice to give to the government. I did that, by meeting the President or any other person on a personal ground. By so doing, no one will ever know, whether my advice is adhered to OR not ” I will not disgrace myself by taking side because everyone is my subject”.
This is what Sanusi failed to do….
He is behaving like a politician… When he was enthroned he continued with unnecessary noise… He was probed … of misappropriation by Ganduje later on… Having been disgraced, Ganduje pardoned him…. If I were him I know what to do as a traditional ruler….
We must go back to history…. Kano Kingdom was there since 999…Uthman Dan Fodio was born in Funtatoro, Senegal in 1774 . He started his Jihad cum political movement in 1804 when he was barely 30 years…
He conquered Sokoto. Before his advent, there were 14 Hausa Kingdoms which Rano was one of them. They all enjoyed their Kings… However, Kano was conquered in 1907.
The issue of this power tussle has been there for long. There are many Kingdoms that were dethroned in Northern Nigeria by Dan fodio and his disciples and up till date. These Kingdoms are still looking for opportunity to take what belongs to them…
We always want to overheat issues and politicise them… Nigerians are hypocrites. We lack the knowledge of history. Kano has been a wonderful ancient city even before the Fulani jihadist..
If you must know, go back and read the history of many renowned families in Kano. Go back to history and read the history of Alhassan Dantata…… Dantata was born into an Agalawa trading family in Bebeji in present-day Kano State in 1877 and died in 1955.
Jot down the dates and facts, at the end you could swear that Kano and other Kingdoms were there doing great before Dan fodio.
Let’s start from Borno Empire, Islam was there for over 500years before even western education came to Southern part of Nigeria. Therefore, the Kanuris were educated and could read and write before any part of Nigeria or even West African countries…
Most of these Kingdoms where Uthman Dan Fodio could not conquer still have there non-fulanis Kings.. (For example) Kanuri, Jukun, TIV, Igala etc…
What actually happened when Dan Fodio took over these Kingdoms he politically relegated and demoted all the Kings to District heads and appointed his disciples as First Class Emirs…
Today, any of these kingdoms who have their own as a Governor because the traditional rulers are under the LG chairmen and the Governor has the final say… would definitely restore back their positions as First Class Kings.. It is not the matter of attacking Kano or something else…
In Adamawa, with highest number of ethnic groups and tribes it has 73 different languages… Plateau state with second highest with 56 different languages…
In Hong Local Government, it was the late Lamido who relegated the Kilba Kingdom when their King died. What do you think will happen if a Kilba one day becomes the Governor of the state..
Likewise every part of Northern Nigeria where such demotion and dethronement had happened. Anytime their own get the opportunity, he will definitely give them their Kingdoms.
What has happened in Kano is inevitable now or later and so also, in many other places and tribes. In fact, with what is currently happening in Kano. Many states will experience the same thing. It is not a siege, not at all… To them, it is an independence in another dimension…
So stop deceiving yourselves, go back and read history. Whether Ganduje divides the emirate or not, someone else will do so in the future…
Go to Rano, Gaya etc and oppose what just happened you will see what will happen to you…
What Ganduje did will not destroy Kano, will not reduce HRH Sanusi and in fact, it may bring development… The only effect is on one person… It has reduced his political power and some financial benefits… If not so, nothing wrong will happen in Kano…
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Unfortunate: The Best President Nigeria Will Never Have
If the man formerly known as Sanusi Lamido Sanusi had carried out a dispassionate SWOT analysis on his good self, he would have opted for a political career instead of ascending the throne of his ancestors. He is too imaginative and effusive to be a monarch because it is a system that inherently neither encourages questions nor open to innovation.
That antiquated contraption will never allow the kind of thinking outside the box that he is so adept at. To paraphrase Winston Churchill the 14th Fulani emir of Kano is “a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma” Such a person should be more welcome in Aso Rock Villa rather than in any royal Hanging Gardens.
The last place Nigeria’s former apex banker should be is under the travel restriction of a Local Government Chairman or being blackmailed to have the Kano Emirate decentralized by a hapless State House of Assembly. It is however not easy to be a victim of circumstances especially if you helped in creating those circumstances in the first place.
The ascendancy of the current Emir of Kano was against the backdrop of high wire politicking as he is unapologetically a Kwankwasiyya loyalist. Any analysis of the many Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats (SWOT) of the former SLS is already in the public domain and do require to be repeated here. What is not are the real intentions of Governor Ganduje towards His Royal Highness: just clipping the emir’s wings or removing him?
Whatever it is Ganduje is not inspired by good governance or probity. The governor is motivated for political reasons – the revenge kind that would have extensive collateral damage on him whenever he vacates office. No doubt the petition by Messrs Ibrahim Salisu & Chambers submitted to the state parliament to review the extant law establishing the Kano emirate as the sole royal stool in Nigeria’s most populous state has Ganduje’s finger prints all over it.
As if seeking to decentralize the emirate is not enough the governor has also gone for the jugular. The Kano State Public Complaints and Anti-Corruption Commission have reopened the probe it started into the emirate’s finances started and suspended two years ago.
Perhaps for the first time in his illustrious life the emir is now lost on his usual pinstripe quotations from Johann Wolfgang von Goethe to Friedrich Nietzsche as the governor ruthlessly brutalizes the scion of the Sullubawa ruling house with an abundance of Niccolo Machiavelli.
The million Naira question is who will blink first between the economist and the governor? By exchanging his trademark bow tie for a full blown turban the emir precariously took the route to involuntary self-abdication by voluntary devaluation.
From hobnobbing with development economists and investment bankers his days are now spent listening to usual idle royal gossip, intervening between bickering courtiers and surviving palace intrigues. For such a maverick once known in banking circles as “Sanusi Tsunami” to become a victim of pedestrian political machinations is a bad Humpty Dumpty fall for somebody who in 2011 was eminently listed among Time magazine’s 100 Most Influential People in the World.
If there is ever a Northern First Eleven the emir would be its most valuable center-forward. This is somebody that has all the attributes of a president. He has the clout and capacity to reinvent Nigeria if he had jumped into the political fray. His dedicated followership would have even reflected a true federal character unlike presently with you-know-who. It is very difficult for me to discern how blue bloods think. That is why I am unsympathetic to the present plight of His Highness.
The throne of Kano cannot be said to be on the same pedestal as the President of Nigeria. As a red blooded commoner I sincerely believe the man formerly known as Sanusi Lamido Sanusi would have impacted Kano much more positively on national assignment rather than as emir. My reason? He has a sufficiency of imagination that would have facilitated the return of Kano’s famous Groundnut Pyramids among other more sustainable “Next Level” accomplishments across Nigeria he would have initiated.
Regrettably he is now under the mercy of an executive Hyperbolus – far below his peer in all ramifications but well-armed with the 1999 Constitution and an awful lot of grievance. What an irony!
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Another word for Emir Sanusi,
By Jaafar Jaafar – 2 years ago
While the hyperbolic lyrics of the legendary Sarkin Kotson Kano Abdulrahman’s magnum opus – Sir Sanusi Sarkin Yaki Zakin Daga Na Abashe – turned the late Sir Sanusi’s inborn hubris into believing that he was above his peers and superiors, his grandson chose to take inspiration from a tribe of cyber buskers cheering him to banishment.
Barely three years after his ascension to the Kano throne, the present emir of Kano, Muhammadu Sanusi II, has dumped a set of etiquettes laid down by Muhammad Al-Maghili during Emir Muhammadu Rumfa’s reign in the 1480’s to inspire awe and instil respect for leaders; demolished the century-old Soron Ingila built by Emir Abbas and used by colonialists shortly after Kano conquest in 1903 and; squandered at least N4billion bequeathed to him by Emir Ado Bayero in 2014.
Lord Lugard at work in his office in the Emir of Kano’s palace after the capture of Kano in 1903. Queen Elizabeth was also received in the same palace in 1956 by Emir Sir Muhammadu Sanusi. Credit: Royal Geographic Society
Let me make it clear to people who think I was paid to write against Emir Sanusi that my conscience is the mainspring of my actions. For the sake of making a point, on Wednesday last week a notable personality who marvelled at my last article on Emir Sanusi sent me a ‘gift’ of N200,000. I declined to accept the gift in order to clear my conscience that I have NEVER collected money from anybody to write against the emir.
Well, I really do not bother about the effete challenge of a clan of Internet meerkats, tying to challenge an armadillo of a journalist. What I am more concerned about is setting the records straight with fairness but without fear or favour.
There are certain traditions a traditional office holder is expected to adhere to. That is the reason it is called traditional institution. Traditional rulers are chief image-markers of their people, chief custodians of culture and traditions, ambassadors of their people, etc. But Emir Sanusi chose to drift from this tradition. I have never heard an Eze saying the Igbos are 419ers or drug-traffickers, nor heard an Oba denigrating the Yoruba people.
While I have my reservations about Ganduje’s light rail project, Emir Sanusi’s conclusion that tens of thousands of enterprising stall owners in Sabon Gari Market, industrious traders of Yankura, dutiful traders at ’Yan Lemo, resilient vendors of Kurmi, venturesome grain dealers of Dawanau, billionaire merchants of Singer and Kantin Kwari Markets are all there to attend “wedding and naming ceremony” is abusive. And I am being charitable.
Emir Sanusi’s Financial Recklessness
About six weeks after becoming emir, Sanusi began the butchery of the emirate council’s life-time savings in fixed deposits in First Bank, UBA, Zenith, FCMB, AfriBank, Access, etc.
On July 24, 2014, the sum of N400m fixed by his predecessor was first broken from First Bank to the transaction account of the emirate council at the same bank. Less than three weeks after, on August 13, 2014, another fixed deposit of N200m was recalled to the main account. The recall of the fixed deposits continued steadily until December 8, 2016 when about N4billion he inherited were drawn into the main/transaction account and mercilessly exterminated.
Following his visit to former President Goodluck Jonathan on July 24, 2014, and subsequent release of his travel documents by the SSS, the emir began criss-crossing the world. On August 1, 2014, Emir Sanusi approved the payment of N152,624,723 to a now sanctioned bureau de change operator, Dabo Gate Ideal. Twelve days after, on August 13, 2014, the same company was again paid N15,458,660. On December 10, 2014, Western Union Travels and Tours Limited, a travel agent to DELOITTE, was paid N6,993,203. Three weeks after, precisely on December 31, 2014, the same company was paid N5,566,235 from the emirate council account. Two weeks after, the company was again paid N9,071,000 from the emirate council account on January 14, 2015. This payment trend to Western Union Travel and Tours and Classic Air Service for chattered flights and foreign travels continues till date.
Contrary to reports that the emir’s expensive cars were gift from friends, documents available to me show that on August 27, 2014, Nigeria’s famous exotic car dealers, Triple K Investments, were paid N142,800,000 from the First Bank account of the emirate council for the supply of exotic cars. Still on August 27 and October 16, 2014, Emir Sanusi approved the payment of another N154,873,000 and N36,223,000 respectively to the same Triple K Investment for the supply of exotic cars. Again, the same company was paid N5,060,000 on December 17, 2014.
In my last article, I hinted that the emir spends a lot on Internet bills. Now to prove this assertion, here is the breakdown of his expenditure on calls and Internet. On June 29, 2015, Airtel was paid N2,639,185.19; on July 22, 2015 (N1,471,163.49); on August 31, 2015 (N4,954,883.61); on September 29, 2015 (N2,638,626.18); on November 9, 2015 (N1,012,077.36); on December 21, 2015 (N8,697,900.09); on March 11, 2016 (N3,640,356.14); on April 26, 2016 (N1,000,000); on August 22, 2016 (N3,000,000) on September 21 (N2,000,000); on December 19 (N5,000,000) and; on February 9, 2017 (N2,000,000).
I couldn’t believe when I once heard the emir once spent N7m on Internet in ONE month! Now imagine this: The total amount the emir spent on Airtel from June 29, 2015 to February 9, 2017 is N37,054,192.06. This amount alone could build a modest school or a cottage hospital with equipment as a way of matching his words with action.
While the salary bill of the emirate was in average of N7million (usually defrayed by the interests accrued from over N4billion fixed deposits Emir Ado Bayero made), the emirate received a steady grant from local government deductions of N127,898,110.07 every quarter – about N42m monthly.
While he buffeted the savings on his expensive lifestyle, to be fair to him, he increased the salary to N17,078,441.56 in September 2014. The salary bill further ballooned under Sanusi to about N23m after the emir put his distant cousins, uncles and other relatives on salary.
When recession bit harder, grants decreased and balance in the account fell to as low as N800,000 at a point, the emir now slashed the salary to the status quo ante, but he never stopped lavish spending on foreign and local travels, Airtel data/calls, questionable NEFT transfer of about N12m monthly, cars, sartorially hyped up outlook, etc.
In monthly grants, the emirate council received between July 30, 2014 and March 1, 2017, the sum of N1,672,953,660. While the total debit from June 8, 2014 to April 11, 2017 is about N6 billion, the current balance in the account as at April 11, 2017 is N23,487,406.12.
For someone who is preaching the gospel of economic management, financial prudence, I wonder why he woefully failed set example in his tiny fief.
Let me, as obedient subject, once again remind my emir, a monarch who does not mind deposition on the altar speaking the “truth”, that when certain Sanusi Lamido Sanusi escaped firing squad by whiskers and jailed for about two and half years under Abacha’s Decree 2 in Sokoto Prisons for “inciting violence”, his rights to both movements and free speech were trampled.
I hope somebody will take some lessons.